California Blocks FCC’s Net Neutrality Decision With Its Own Bill

About a week ago, we wrote about California’s new net neutrality bill, its importance for the nation, and our unwavering support of net neutrality and the new state bill. As is often the case with politics, sometimes citizens don’t get their voices heard.

With net neutrality repealed in late 2017, almost every consumer and developer became upset with the strong possibility of losing Internet freedom. “Data caps”, “blocking”, “throttling”, and “paid channel prioritization” were terms tossed around by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) throughout 2016 and 2017, much to the dismay of hundreds of millions of daily Internet users.

We Won!

California’s decision to pass its bill didn’t go down without a fight. AT&T and cable lobbyists showed up to the state’s Senate meetings to protest the bill’s intentions and wording. But the Senate passed the bill anyway with an 8-3 vote. It includes an overturn of every aspect of the FCC’s bill, and it even includes a ban on paid data cap exemptions.

The bill must still be approved by California’s Senate Judiciary Committee, the full Senate, the Democrat-led State Assembly and Democrat Governor Jerry Brown. But it’s looking highly promising that the bill will become law.

Although the bill could’ve been watered down with the removal of a few clauses in the legislation, Democrat Senator Scott Wiener negotiated on behalf of all Californians to keep it intact. According to Stanford law professor Barbara van Schewick, the legislation is “the only state-level bill that fully restores all of the 2015 net neutrality protections. That’s why it’s widely viewed as a net neutrality model bill, and that’s why [former] FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler, who literally wrote the 2015 order, supports this bill.”

Setting the Standard for the Other States

As with many things in California, we’re leading the movement in repealing unfair and discriminatory Internet practices. If we’re funding the Internet service providers with our taxes, our telecom equipment should be upgraded when needed and we should be able to freely use the Internet as a basic freedom. The issue stretches past the tech scene in San Francisco; it affects the entire nation.

We hope that other states rush to overturn the FCC’s ruling as soon as possible; once the FCC’s law is implemented, it could be more difficult to turn things around. In the meantime, we look forward to California’s passing of its net neutrality bill.